1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display method for displaying an image obtained by using a camera array image capturing device (also referred to simply as a “camera array”, as known as camera array system, multiple lens camera, and the like) including a plurality of image capturing units.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, as a technique to display a plurality of captured images obtained at one time by a camera array image capturing device (hereinafter, referred to as a camera array) including a plurality of image capturing units, a list display technique to display two captured images arranged horizontally side by side is known (for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. H11-088912 (1999)). By simultaneously outputting two captured images with a parallax captured by two image capturing units on the display by arranging them side by side in the horizontal direction, the list display technique makes it possible to check framing and exposure of both the captured images at one time.
On the other hand, in the case that a captured image obtained by using a general digital camera including a single image capturing unit is displayed, the display rotation technique is used generally, which rotates the orientation of a captured image in accordance with the orientation of the camera at the time of image capturing. For example, in the case where image capturing is performed with a camera held vertically, an image in which a subject is laid horizontally is displayed with the camera held as it is. However, by rotating the captured image by 90° and displaying it, it is made possible to cause the orientation of the camera at the time of image capturing to agree with the orientation of the captured image to be displayed.
In the conventional display rotation technique described above, by the rotation of the image about the image center of the captured image to be displayed as an axis, the orientation of the camera at the time of image capturing is caused to agree with the orientation of the captured image to be displayed. If this technique is applied to a list display of a group of captured images captured with the camera array held vertically, the individual captured images rotate about the image center as the origin. However, the order of arrangement of the list display (that is, the arrangement of captured images to be displayed) does not change before and after the rotation. Consequently, in the case where images are captured with the camera array held horizontally, in which rotation of the image is not necessary, no problem occurs, but, in the case where images are captured with the camera array held vertically, there arises such a problem that the arrangement of captured images to be displayed does not agree with the arrangement of the image capturing units within the camera array. That is, depending on the orientation (angle) of the camera array at the time of image capturing, the arrangement of image capturing units and the arrangement of captured images to be displayed sometimes agree with each other and sometimes not, and therefore, there has been such a problem that it is hard to grasp the correspondence relationship between both.